This is the joint website of Women Against Rape and Black Women's Rape Action Project. Both organisations are based on self-help and provide support, legal information and advocacy. We campaign for justice and protection for all women and girls, including asylum seekers, who have suffered sexual, domestic and/or racist violence.

WAR was founded in 1976. It has won changes in the law, such as making rape in marriage a crime, set legal precedents and achieved compensation for many women. BWRAP was founded in 1991. It focuses on getting justice for women of colour, bringing out the particular discrimination they face. It has prevented the deportation of many rape survivors. Both organisations are multiracial.

Anne Neale, Legal Action for Women Kim Sparrow, Single Mothers’ Self Defence Mothers fighting for their children
Suffer the Little Children – a Dossier by Legal Action for Women documenting mothers’ struggle in the family courts in England, will be launched at the meeting.

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We invite you to join London SlutWalk with us, this Saturday 11 June. In stark contrast to the way events are often structured, the London organisers approached our group seeking the active involvement of women of colour. We will be marching and speaking at the rally.

SlutWalks have taken place in a number of countries, and more are proposed including in India. Yet some Black feminists have condemned them as irrelevant to women of colour, and dismissed the organisers as ‘white middle-class women’. We reject this view.

SlutWalk is a much needed occasion to break down divisions and strengthen everyone’s right to protection and justice, no matter who we are, where we were raped or who raped us.

We want to make visible the 70% of women from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and elsewhere who are seeking asylum in the UK after suffering rape and other torture.

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WAR will be taking part in the Slutwalk on Saturday in Trafalgar Square, London, and speaking at the rally.

In January, police officer Michael Sanguinetti told students at a Toronto Law School that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised." Thousands of women protested in the first Slutwalk in Toronto. Their manifesto said: "We are tired of being oppressed by slut-shaming; of being judged by our sexuality and feeling unsafe as a result. Being in charge of our sexual lives should not mean that we are opening ourselves to an expectation of violence, regardless if we participate in sex for pleasure or work. No one should equate enjoying sex with attracting sexual assault."

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Dear friends,

We invite you to the Mothers March and Speak Out on Saturday 12 March which we have endorsed. Many rape survivors took part last year; we hope many will again. We want to make visible the experiences of mothers and other carers who are rape survivors, or whose children are rape survivors, and how fighting for justice and protection is part of the caring work we do for our loved ones. Over 90% of rapists go free, while increasingly rape victims are being jailed for so-called false allegations.

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STOP RAPE, DETENTION AND DEPORTATIONS

On 8 June, a charge of attempted rape brought by Ms Joy N against chief of police inspector Vittorio Addesso of Milan CIE (Centre for Identification and Expulsion) Detention Centre in Italy, will be heard in court. People will be protesting outside the court

In August 2009, Mr Addesso tried to rape Ms Joy N, a young Nigerian woman, while she slept in the detention centre he runs. Her cellmate and three other women intervened and stopped the rape.

The director of the detention centre Massimo Chiodini, from the Red Cross (which runs many detention centres throughout Italy), witnessed the attempted rape but later in court denied seeing anything.

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Women’s uncensored experiences of detention and deportation

Speakers include:

Paulina B – won a precedent setting case & compensation for illegal detention, Fatma K – centrally involved in a Yarl’s Wood hunger strike which led to over a dozen rape survivors being released, Celina M – witnessed the sprucing up of Yarl’s Wood in preparation for VIP visits, Jalia S – detained with her two small children – interviewed by TV on release.

Plus taped interviews with women currently detained or illegally deported.